Contrary to reports, the Kelihos botnet has not crawled out of the grave, Microsoft said last week. But the company acknowledged that a new botnet is being assembled using a variant of the original malware.
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As promised, Microsoft on Wednesday shipped version 1.0 of the Kinect for Windows SDK and runtime and said partners have started selling the Kinect hardware.
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Password use needs an overhaul that is driven not by guesswork but by actually understanding the real damage that can be done when password security is compromised, according to a Microsoft researcher.
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It was so close. Microsoft made it 363 days in 2011 without releasing an update outside of the monthly Patch Tuesday cycle. It was also 48 hours away from finishing 2011 in double-digits for security bulletins. But, on December 29, Microsoft pushed out an out-of-band patch — MS11-100.
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The topic around the olives and cheese plate last week at an extended family Christmas gathering was, interestingly enough, Microsoft distancing itself from CES. My family, not ordinarily given to tech gossip, was alarmed, thinking that perhaps there was a grand re-ordering of things that they should know about. It’s a remarkably straightforward move, far from the conspiracy theories the last few days have spawned, but when you’re dealing with bruisers like Microsoft and CES, everything is swathed in diplomacy as would be ostensibly amicable divorce proceedings. But Microsoft’s grievances are legitimate and the move is a smart one.
“Our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing.” How true that is, and as others have pointed out, their product news generally didn’t align with products, either. And they’re aware that their news is propagating in a completely different way than it used to.
Technologizer had a handy round-up of the keynotes, which generally have highlighted products that never shipped, or didn’t work well on stage. It’s a bit embarrassing to go back and watch some of these, knowing as we do how these products turned out. Why did Microsoft ever participate in this?
Part of it was Bill Gates, who was much more of a keynote kind of guy. If you’ve seen him speak, you know that despite his natural nerdiness, he’s an endearing presence on stage and his enthusiasm for the broader mission of technology is infectious. Ballmer is certainly bombastic, but for years we’ve heard over and over the growth stats on Windows, heard from a few partners mumbling carefully-rehearsed platitudes, then seen a few features of the next version or a prototype (last year’s ARM surprise, to be fair, was the best thing they’ve had in years). It’s become rote, and rote is what Microsoft fears most now.
The company is desperate for a reinvention of how it presents itself, and these doddering CES keynotes are exhibit A in the Case of the Dull Microsoft PR. Their booth, too, is filled with old devices and people halfheartedly selling services that anyone in the market is already well aware of.
Meanwhile, year-round on the internet, we see astonishing things being done in Microsoft Research and Labs, beautiful and powerful demonstrations of advanced technology. And the Building Windows 8 blog is the surprise Microsoft hit of the year, with nearly every single post (detailed, revealing, and technical) creating a storm of discussion on the web. The new Explorer interface, for instance, spawned thousands of articles (not necessarily positive) and others have done nearly as much. The way Microsoft gets word out of its innovations, its products, its business performance, has been changing for years, but they and CES have clung together out of habit. I’m pleased to see Microsoft doing what it does worst: breaking a bad habit.
CES is a show for product builders, people who ship devices, where you need to be there in real life to see how it works, how it feels, and most importantly, how it compares to the guys in the next booth. Microsoft simply isn’t a part of that world, and the show hasn’t been about them for years. They’ll still have a booth, and I expect them to stay around for a while. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped using CES as a focal point for announcements, and use it instead (as many other large companies do) to present a snapshot of the company through and through, prototypes, research projects, traditional devices, servers, and all. They’ve made more room on the stage for companies that truly want to show off impressive things and talk about where the tech world is heading. I look forward to attending the keynotes of whoever steps up.
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Microsoft will have a keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show for the last time in 2012, although it will continue to participate in the giant trade show, a company executive said in a blog post Wednesday.
Microsoft will offer a keynote speech at the upcoming CES, Jan. 10 to 13 in Las Vegas, but the company is rethinking how it announces new products, Frank Shaw, vice president for corporate communications, wrote in the blog post.
“Our industry moves fast and changes faster,” Shaw wrote. “And so the way we communicate with our customers must change in equally speedy ways.”
The company is looking for new ways to promote its products, including in-house events, Facebook and Twitter announcements, and information on Microsoft.com, Shaw wrote.
“As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories … it feels like the right time to make this transition,” he said. “We’ll continue to participate in CES as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries, but we won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing.”
Microsoft has worked with CES sponsor the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) for nearly 20 years, and the company will continue to work with the trade group, Shaw said.
CEA, in a statement, said that it and Microsoft “have agreed that the time has come to end this great run” of 14 annual keynotes at CES by the company. Microsoft has unveiled some “great innovations” during that time, the trade group said.
Microsoft will not request exhibit space in the CES Great Hall in 2013, CEA added.
“We have received expressions of interest for that space from the long waiting list for Central Hall exhibit space,” CEA said. “Exhibitors will choose space for the 2013 CES during the 2012 show, and in past years available Central Hall exhibit space has sold out within hours.”
Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant’s e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.
When Adobe last week issued an advisory about a dangerous zero-day attack based on an unpatched Adobe Reader vulnerability that was being exploited in the wild to try and seize control of both PCs and Macs, it credited Lockheed Martin for sounding the alarm about it.
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iCloud and Microsoft Exchange data can simultaneously exist on iOS devices, OS X, and Microsoft Outlook. Below are some examples to help you better understand where your data is stored and how it is managed. View full post on Apple – Support – Most Popular
Hackers continue to launch attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in Oracle’s Java software in record numbers, Microsoft said.
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Microsoft will build a Kinect device specifically for use with PCs, as the company prepares to launch a program to support commercial products developed for Kinect and Windows.
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